Arts Plus. Music.

Young Violinist's Brilliance Triumphs Over Adversity

All through her ordeal of the last six months Rachel Barton expressed the hope that people would continue to regard her as a musician first and foremost, not as a victim of a terrible accident.

Sunday afternoon, under a broiling sun at the Petrillo Music Shell, she got her wish.

This was the first concert appearance by the greatly talented 20-year-old Chicago violinist since the Metra train accident last January that cost her part of her left leg and severely damaged her right. She was backed by an orchestra of her peers, the Chicago Youth Symphony, under Daniel Hege's direction, the event presented by the Grant Park Concerts Society in its "Concerts for Kids, Too!" series.

An audience estimated at between 6,000 and 8,000 rose in standing tribute as Hege escorted Barton onstage in her wheelchair and they showered her with applause (not to mention bouquets) at the end of her performance of the Dvorak Violin Concerto. All eyes, all TV cameras, were on the resilient young musician. Barton beamed.

And well she might, because she was in top form. Everyone in that rapt audience, seemingly oblivious to the scorching heat, knew it. When Barton touched horsehair to strings, out came that deep, rich, burnished sound we remembered from before-a sound that remains as intense and true and wise as Barton's musical instincts.

There was no thought of any physical "impairment," so focused was she on what she was playing, and because her ability to play the violin beautifully has not changed one iota.

This young woman reminded all of the transcendental power of music in a Dvorak concerto as warm and full of vitality as any one has heard from any top-ranked virtuoso. Barton has never been the sort to wilt under pressure-or the summer sun. The poise of her playing was incredible, given the fevered media and public scrutiny going into Sunday's concert. The range of tonal colors she drew from her 1617 Amati violin would have made a peacock blush.

The Dvorak may not be one of the great violin concertos but Barton's playing was so ripe with Bohemian songfulness that you could have mistaken it for a masterpiece. In her hands the Czech furiant rhythms of the finale were wonderfully exact, while the Adagio had the feeling of a relaxed country idyll. Hege and the orchestra seized on the Romantic nature of the piece in their accommodating support of the soloist.

Comeback? How could it be, since Barton never really left the local spotlight. Let's just say it was an occasion to make us rejoice an uncommonly gifted young musician has now returned to the musical fray with everything she needs to go on to even greater successes.

Mendelssohn's "Reformation" Symphony began the program. A somewhat undernourished-sounding Youth Symphony dug into the score with commendable spirit, but the quality of their ensemble playing and intonation was simply not in the class of the Dvorak.Tribune photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo